WHY ISIS HAS NOT LEARNED ITS LESSONS ?

Its now known to everyone that Jabhat-al-Nusra was infact a project of Islamic State of Iraq(ISI). The emir of JN-Abu Muhammad al Jawlani was sent along with Syrians and some other fighters in the ranks of ISI to Syria by ISI's amir AbuBakr al Baghdadi.

AbuBakr al Baghdadi is credited with reviving Alqaeda in Iraq. The organization which once had thousands of members; local and foreign, which took on world's superpower and controlled large territories in Iraq crumbled down in 2007. Many jihadis have written about the reasons of the fall of Alqaeda in Iraq. Many blame sahwas, foreign conspiracies and propaganda. While there is defintely truth in this, the fact remains that Alqaeda in Iraq made lot of blunders.

Right after controlling the territory, the organization rushed to announce an Islamic State. One of the reason for it is the utopian view of an Islamic State held by Salafi Jihadis. They thought of it as a rare opportunity to bring back Caliphate . But what what they did not realize is that as some jihadis wrote that in reality, their organization was baited by the Americans to declare the state prematurely. In order to declare the state, key mistakes were made by the organization.

1. A large human resource was required to manage the affairs of the state. Thus, large number of fighters had to be diverted from fighting.
2. Many of these fighters had to deal with public and thus exposing them for intelligence agencies..
3. To solve the problem of human resource, Alqaeda in Iraq took bayah from lots of tribes/brigades and made hurried inductions. Consequently, many spies and intelligence agents made their way into the organization.
4. These infiltrators then attacked public and other jihadi brigades. This not only led to an infighting amonst the jihadis but also damaged their reputation. Situation got so bad that the leaders did not know who was fighting whom. Abu Omar al Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al Muhajir were making public videos appealing for unity but on the ground, things were'nt in control
5. Media controlled by the enemies of Alqaeda took advantage of this and made the most of the whole situation while infiltrators and less motivated and ideological fighters within Alqaeda in Iraq formed the Sahwa. These fighters knew all about the organization, their key figures, operatives e.t.c
6. Thus, the whole organization was compromised. Within a little span of time, thousands were killed and rounded up all over Iraq. Intelligence agents even infiltrated as far as knowing the actual whereabouts of Abu Hamza al Muhajir and Abu Umar al Baghdadi.

After the Americans left, Sahwa apparatus became weak and the Sahwa thought that Alqaeda was not coming back. Nouri al Maliki also started oppressing the Sunnis of Iraq. All of this gave space to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi to rebuild the organization. He apparently learnt the lessons, built a secretive, decentralized and coherent force that carried out assassinations using silencers, sticky bombs e.t.c

With many foreigh fighters gone, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi recruited Iraqis and restored the funding. To the point that his organization was able to give money to establish a Syrian arm.

Start of JN.

JN was an incredibly successful project. Started out be few fighters under Jawlani, it quickly spread its influence throughout Syria and established its own funding and recruiting. Most of all Jawlani who reportedly had spent much time in Iraq had learnt his lessons. His policy of managing the organization was as follows.

1. Increased focus on fighting on the front instead of rushing to establish a state. The areas that were taken over were governed by joint shariah councils with other Islamic brigades and local Imams, thus making it sure that the fighters don't get too much involved in “management of state”. Instead, his fighters were the most effective force on the front lines.
2. Shariah was enforced but in a way that fighters don't have to get in public and get preoccupied with local affairs.
3. Recruitment policy was much more strict. Many jihadis were told to fight under JN's umbrella organizations first and after lots of training, ideological upbringing were they accepted into the organization.
4. Secrecy was made a strict policy. None of the fighters or suicide bombers ever showed their faces in JN's vidoes. Not only that, their fighters were always away from the public. So much was their secrecy that towards the start that many media organizations had hard time guessing about the nature of the organization.

These policies made sure that JN remained a competent popular force in Syria which was harder to infiltrate or spy on.

Split Up .

Just when everyone thought that things are going well for Alqaeda, ISIS's Amir Abu Bakr al Baghdadi declared a state not only against the will of his man in Syria-Jawlani but also against the will of the overall amir of Alqaeda-Zawahiri.

Still, there was optimism that even after the split the mistakes of Iraq would not be repeated. As expected, many of the fighters of JN remained loyal to Jawlani. In Daraa, Hama, Idlib and Damascus, JN remains a majority. In Aleppo and east, JN faced defections but maintained its presence.

Baghdadi did not get what he expected from the announcement of the state which was total submission of JN so he started a campaign to expand the state which included

1. Accepting Jihadis from all brigades and lax recruitment/induction criterion. This is evident from the fact that many jihadi organizations that operated independently of JN were immediately brought into the fold of ISIS. This is done in order to compete with JN in strength.
2. ISIS members have started moving into the public and mixing with them. Many of their recent releases no longer blur the faces of their members.

For many zealous jihads, the idea of expanding by recruiting dozens of men and moving into the public with the state sounds great. But it all comes as a cost which has started hitting them now.

The organizations becomes easy to infiltrate and more difficult to control. Committed members become easy target for assassinations once they are exposed. ISIS is now beginning to suffer from the same mistakes again after accusations of killing of local fighters by ISIS have surfaced. One arabic interview by a member of ISIS is quite relevant . In this interview he admits that subordinate ISIS commanders attacked local FSA and JN at one incident without approval of the amir. He also admits that Syrian Mukhabarat have made some inroads into the organization.[1]

So far the senior ranks of ISIS are not infiltrated. But small incidents have happened and western media along with pro-West activists are trying to blow them out of proportion. Though ISIS is trying hard to maintain public goodwill by engaging in relief work and giving Dawah, the incidents of indiscipline raise a question ?

Why had these incidents not happened before split, under JN, despite attempts by the pro-West media and activists ?

So far, I don't doubt the commitment of ISIS leadership to the jihadi cause but its a fact that these issues were absent under JN and a visible shift in policy of ISIS has been observed which makes them vulnerable. It remains to be seen how ISIS will tackle the future challenges. Because the incidents have started happening and the propaganda machine( Al-Arabiya and co) are back in action suggesting a desire by gulf countries and KSA to defame ISIS and West has since long been pushing FSA to fight against Alqaeda and “extremists”.

Despite a bit of mess, it will still be difficult for West to replay Iraq on ISIS in Syria. The main reason for it is the presence of Ahrar, Suqoor, Liwa and other Islamist brigades who won't be willing to play in the hands of the West. This non-AQ islamist factor in Syria is the most decisive one in favor of ISIS despite them repeating their mistakes of the past.

Original text is in this link:
http://shaamoljihad.blogspot.fr/2013/07/why-islamic-state-of-iraq-now-islamic.html